


Remote Viewing

by inbox



Series: Psychic Load [11]
Category: Cable (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Punisher (Comics)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Break Up, Dating, Exhibitionism, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Masturbation in Shower, Mild Cock & Ball Torture, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Sexual Fantasy, Size Difference, Telepathic Bond, Telepathic Sex, Telepathy, Undercover as a Couple, Unrequited, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:08:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23384284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/pseuds/inbox
Summary: Frank has a war to fight, and Frank’s gonna fight it ‘til he’s dead.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Nathan Summers
Series: Psychic Load [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1367605
Comments: 14
Kudos: 39





	Remote Viewing

“So,” says Cable without preamble. “What are you wearing?”

Frank sighs and closes his shitty clamshell phone with a snap, tossing it onto the heavy wooden butcher’s block he's using as a kitchen table-cum-storage bench. 

Cable calls back immediately. He lets it go for a full eleven rings before he answers, right before the cut-off. 

“Give it up,” he says, breaking up a clump of egg yolk. “I'm making something to eat.”

He's got his phone cradled between his shoulder and ear, stuck in a lopsided shrug as he finishes up at the little two burner hot plate. Nothing fancy. Four eggs cracked in the pan, hot butter first, pushed around with the side of his fork until they're cooked enough to hold together. 

“That doesn't tell me anything,” says Cable. The connection isn't great; the signal is weak this far out in the Poconos. It's one of Frank's favourite home bases, remote and wild and deep enough out in the sticks he can fire a M60 ‘til the barrel glows without anyone hearing, but the cell reception depends on a good breeze and downloading a movie is a three day process. 

“Boxers,” he says with a sigh. “Blue ones.”

Cable makes an encouraging noise, low and inquisitive, and for a brief moment Frank closes his eyes and fights against the Pavlovian response he has to that sound. Cable making that kind of pleased rumble by Frank's ear usually means that he's about to get a treat, whatever Frank wants, whatever Cable feels like giving him.

“I'm hanging up now,” he says, marshalling back his self control. He's gonna eat his eggs. He's gonna sit down and start planning his next hit. He's not gonna let his breakfast burn because Cable gets his dick hard. “You want to inspect my wardrobe, you know where to find me.”

“I called for a reason,” Cable says quickly. “Work. It's in Europe, small job. Two nights, three max. I need someone who doesn't look-- I need someone who passes for normal. Appearance wise.”

He lets the backhanded compliment pass. “When?”

“Two weeks from now.” Cable gives him the date, and he dishes up his meal onto a slice of plain toast while checking his calendar. It'll fit with the job he's planning. It's a little tighter than he'd prefer, but he'll make it work.

“Sure,” he says ‘round a mouthful of eggs. “I can do it.”

“Good, good,” says Cable. “Do you own a suit?”

“Do I _what_?”

“Get a suit,” says Cable. “Make sure you look good. Nothing black. Maybe grow out your beard? It, ah, looks good on you.”

He hangs up before Frank can interrogate him over what kind of horseshit gig Cable picked do that might require a dress code more strict than ‘leaves minimal trace evidence’ and ‘easily disposed of.’

Three days later an eye-watering amount of cash hits the checking account of Franklin Sangar, retired schoolteacher. Frank doesn't really need to apply much effort to sleuthing out the obfuscated source, not when the description reads ‘Donation for itinerant clothing fund’.

 **Received 0601:** _charcoal, light blue tie. just an idea. if you need a hand i’m sure i can find an excuse to assist.  
_**Sent 1153:** _I own a suit u Presumptuous asshole.  
_**Received 1207:** _not hearing a no on that assist, Chuck._

He keeps the money anyway. He can buy a whole lotta bullets with the cash needed for Cable's idea of a nice tailored suit, and if Cable doesn't like it, he can take it up with Frank’s 24/7 complaints department just like everyone else. 

* * *

“Mr and Mr Winters,” says Frank when he shuts the door. “ _Winters?_ ”

“I'm not taking criticism from someone who thinks the alias Chuck Fort is impenetrable.” Cable thumbs off his image inducer and throws open the hotel room curtains with a flourish. 

“I like the view,” says Frank after an awkward pause. “Nice brick wall.”

“Yeah, well,” says Cable. There's enough loading time on that sentence to tell Frank all he needs to know: Cable had been expecting something infinitely better, and that he's slightly put out that he doesn't get to show off. “I didn't want you to feel homesick.”

He smirks and dumps his duffel bag at the foot of the bed. He's travelling light on this trip to Switzerland. Cable had been clear about the parameters of the op: observation, recording, planting a tracking device. Two nights max, minimal weaponry. He's strapped with a lightweight Skrull hand cannon and a spotters scope; Cable had been insistent to the point of overbearing that they needed an absolute minimum of hardware. 

“So,” he says, sitting at the end of the bed, bouncing a little on the dense mattress. “How do you want to play this?”

“Acclimate first,” says Cable. “We need to be seen a little. Late lunch in the hotel bistro, walk around the block.”

“Sounds like a date.”

Cable folds his arms and gives Frank a look from top to toe, lingering a little too much to get away with being strictly businesslike. “Here's the play. I'm here on a trip to talk business with a prospective seller of mutant genome research. Highly illegal, stolen IP. You're my big-dicked new husband who is madly in love with me. We're newlyweds. Play it large and--”

“Well trained.”

Cable laughs. “Exactly. Sound good?”

“Sounds accurate,” he says slowly. He smooths the thick cotton bedspread by his thighs, the rough calluses and barked skin on his palms catching and dragging at the threads, and lifts his chin to stare down Cable with a cynical eye. “Chris Winters. Give me the file again. Gonna refresh my memory before I take you out.”

“First thing though,” says Cable distractedly, digging in his thigh pocket with a frown. “Gotta make an honest woman outta you.”

He says _ahah!_ and Frank's guts flip - jesus, of all things to get squirrely over, Cable sounding pleased - then Cable is pressing a plain gold band into his palm, already skin-warm. “For the look of it.”

“Was picking you as the type to get down on one knee.” He turns it over in his palm, and works it onto his ring finger. It's a little too big but it'll do. 

“When it's the real deal, Mrs Summers.” The look Cable gives him goes for a beat too long, runs a little too hot, ‘til he turns away to dig in his bag for his laptop. “Some files for you,” he says, handing the laptop over, but the joke falls flat into stale air. 

Sometimes things are just a lil’ too on the nose to be funny.

* * *

Occasionally life conspires to remind Frank that he's dumped a lotta interpersonal skills out of his head over the years. 

He's good at improvising on the fly when running a job, sure, but he was really goddamn lacking when it came to sitting kitty-corner at a cafe table while Cable gently stroked his thumb over Frank's knuckles, scouting passers-by while Cable destroyed a plate of chocolate pastries. Frank sipped his coffee and got distracted and annoyed by Cable’s affectionate acting in equal measure, made worse by Cable chuckling in his head and squeezing his hand. 

It wasn't just him who saw his personal shortcomings, and maybe that was the greater offence. The waiter who took their order looked at him all gnarly and unshaven, then at Cable all smooth and handsome under the sheen of his image inducer and, as clear as if Frank was telepathic himself, broadcast a loud opinion of _silver fox should do better._

Which, yeah, that's a fair assessment, but just ‘cause it was true doesn't mean that Frank can't be mildly offended by the waiter's harsh assessment of his many shortcomings. 

For sure he's definitely forgotten how to date someone. Can't even pretend to effectively play act at the thing he's slowly starting to admit that he wants for real, as much as the thought sends a squirrelly twist through his guts, still too big to approach head on. 

Frank has, in his opinion, been a dumb fucking idiot by undoing years of hard work hardening his shell and purging his core and eschewing the messy liabilities of comfort and attraction. Stupid mistake to fall for someone. A stupid mistake he doesn't want to make, yet a stupid mistake he's desperate to indulge in. 

If he’n Cable weren't pretending to be married to run this dumb scheme there's no way he'd be able to seal the deal. Not when Cable put on such an uncannily accurate performance of a man equally bemused and charmed by his muscular rough trade husband, a thick decoration on Cable's arm who wasn't expected to contribute anything more than grunts to the conversation. 

He vaguely remembers that it's the little things that count when impressing someone, and he's struggling to remember how to do any of them. ‘Specially not when Cable took Frank's hand and tugged it under the table and casually placed it on his thigh, right where he could feel the line of flesh zippering into metal underneath the light, expensive fabric. 

He squeezed at the dense muscle, feeling pissy and petty ‘bout his own glaring shortcomings. ‘Cept that backfired ‘cause Cable made a deep contented noise in the privacy of Frank's head, and for a brief moment his brain checked out and clocked off.

If Cable saw his brief fantasy of being the kind of normal, unremarkable guy who could afford to take his boyfriend to Europe, or even take his boyfriend out for a coffee to watch with hungry indulgence at the sight of him - whoever, no one in particular - inhaling a plate of little chocolate pastries, or, pathetically, being the kind of guy to have a boyfriend in any kind of capacity longer than an evening, well… at least he was tactful enough to not comment on it. 

Frank might want as much as he likes in the privacy of his own head, free to wallow in the guilty indulgence of naked animal desire - to have Cable, to claim him, to wake up with Cable’s marks on his neck and Cable’s sweat on his bedsheets and Cable’s hand squeezing his thigh, sleepy and unguarded - but some embarrassing shit can only exist behind a one way gate.

Tonight though, this is more his speed. He's on a roof, as always, but it's a nice warm summer evening. There's an alcove out of the breeze with a chair that's more cigarette burns than vinyl, so he's not even breaking his knees for once. Almost luxurious.

He watches the bar through his spotter’s scope, swinging between Cable and their target, and the room at large. They've been in conversation for forty minutes. No knives, no guns. There's a companion with the buyer, but Cable has searched her head and Frank has scoped the lines of her pantsuit. If she's carrying neither of them can discern it. 

He hasn't let his guard drop, not by a long shot, but he's comfortable enough with the situation to stay up here on a roof amongst someone's potted flowers and watch Cable sip his heavily watered down bourbon. 

_How does it look?_

_Still clean,_ he thinks. _There's someone new watching you. Reckon she's interested, not scouting. Tall woman, dark hair, dark dress. On your nine o’clock if you're looking to get lucky._

Cable laughs in his head, clear as a bell. _Don't talk about yourself like that._ He still follows Frank's directions anyway, rolling his neck and scopes out the lady watching Cable with discreet interest. He smiles politely at her and she turns pink.

The business in the bar wraps up with careful consideration. Cable shakes the mark’s hand and kisses his companion on both cheeks, and watches them leave with a warm smile. 

_Frank._

He watches the mark walk down the street, the woman matching him step for step. 

_All clear._ He sits back on his borrowed chair and caps the scope. _You want me to follow them?_

_I want to go back to the hotel and order a room service cheeseburger._

Frank rolls his eyes. 

_And I want a shower._

_Summers. You want them tailed? Yes or no._

He watches Cable empty his glass and count out a wad of euros on the bar top. _No. You're going to sit on my face._

 _Gonna be hard to multitask that and a cheeseburger,_ he says, recovering faster than he normally does when Cable decides to trip Frank ass over heels.

Cable's amusement seeps into Frank's brain like a warm glow, buoys him up even as he's hauling ass down a ladder to meet him in the alley. Cable's mouth tastes like weak bourbon when he ducks his head to kiss him pressed up against a sandstone wall, slow and lazy like they've got all the time in the world. 

Like so many good ideas only part of Cable's plan comes to fruition. The cheeseburger happens, the face sitting does not. Cable demolishes two burgers and a plate of fries as big as a trashcan lid, salting each fry and dipping them in puddles of mayonnaise and ketchup as he goes. Frank makes a face of disgust and picks at his BLT, content to put Euro basketball on mute as Cable starts a phone call to someone back in the States. He sits on the edge of the bed and reads from a hard light projection he beams from his wrist, oblivious to Frank watching him as much as he's watching the tv. 

Looks cool, Frank notices. Neat tech. Not as neat as moaning like a bitch while Cable folds his knees to his chest and eats his asshole like Frank is a cheap buffet, but neat regardless. 

The fleeting impression of laughter in his head tells him that Cable is eavesdropping. The words float up in his head, hazy and indistinct, like Cable is splitting his attention a little too far; a promise of sitting on Cable’s face under the thin morning sun, blinds open and sheets rumpled. _Break my nose in the morning,_ Cable says. _I promise to make you come on my face then._

Truthfully Frank doesn't like to mess around too much while he's on the clock, and Cable is more preoccupied with checking his tech and touching base with his people to do anything more than interrupt his phone call and mouth ‘keep the door open’ when Frank decides to reward himself with a long soak under the hotel suite shower and indicates so with a brief mime of washing himself. 

He's not one for much luxury, not these days, but he's not such a goddamn idiot that he'd miss any opportunity to stare blankly at the wall under a cascade of hot water that never runs out. He stands there until his fingertips prune, then washes up thoroughly, tip to toe, asshole to elbow. He lingers around his junk and catches Cable's eye. 

Cable raises an eyebrow, looks him up and down, and grants permission with a patrician nod of his head. 

The implicit allowance of the move - that he may touch himself because Cable indulges him - gives him a hot dirty thrill in his gut. He _knows_ Cable can tell, can tell without him being in Frank's head, just by the way he smirks and keeps on talking.

He spreads his legs and leans against the tiles, touching himself from chest to thigh under the steady flow of warm water. He tugs at his balls and presses his fingertips firm against his taint ‘til his toes curl and his dick throbs. Frank strokes himself off while Cable occasionally glances over the top of his laptop, shaking his head slightly when Frank gets too close to coming, warning him to slow down, lighten his touch, forcing Frank race along the crumbling cliff edge of his orgasm without even uttering a word. 

He wonders if whoever Cable is talking to has any clue that he's fondling himself through his cherry red boxers while watching his own private show, calmly talking about plans and operations as he watches Frank loses his self-control, red faced and lips parted, staring back at Cable as semen dribbles thick down his own wrist. 

Even out of the shower Cable demands an indulgence, spreading his legs and silently pointing at the space between his thighs while having a conversation about, as far as Frank can tell, about the merits of moving mechanical supplies to a place in New Mexico. He lets Cable carefully unwind the luxurious thick hotel towel from his waist and drop it to the floor, turning when Cable silently pushes on his hip to dispassionately appraise him like a piece of prime meat. A secret part of Frank, hidden somewhere so deep and dark that the light can not touch it, knots and squirms in pleasure at Cable's hot approving stare as he keeps blandly talking to his people and feeling him up all over.

Cable touches his thighs, presses into his belly, pinches his nipples ‘til they stiffen and his skin turns blotchy red. He digs his knuckles into the ugly patchwork of scars on Frank's back, traces the marks left by knives and bullets, drags his fingertips across the three parallel razor sharp scars that arc over his shoulder blade and sweep down his flank. Cable palms the hard muscle of his glutes, pinches the thin layer of fat ‘round Frank's hips, takes his sensitive soft cock and balls in hand and squeezes them gently until Frank is on the urge of making a reedy little bitch moan. He rubs his thumb deep into the bowl of Frank's palm and strokes at the ring on his hand, making it turn on his finger, and the stare he gives Frank while doing that makes him squirm on the spot, decadent embarrassment running hot deep along his bones. 

He gets to his knees - slower than he used to be, a hand on Cable’s thick thigh for balance - and sits there on his heels, waiting for instruction. 

Kneeling here in front of him, looking up at Cable, the angle makes him feel a bit stupid on the inside. From his spot the floor Cable looks massive, bigger than normal, a great colossus of meat and metal that he kneels before before in meek supplication. Frank isn’t really inclined to feel small, not since nature decided to rocket him up to six foot something and make him as heavy as a side of beef, but Cable looming over him hits something in his brain that likes feeling small and well-behaved, easy to mold and manipulate. A good dog, well trained. 

He rests his palms on Cable’s knees, thumbs tucked to his fingers, and waits.

Cable laughs. “We can make it happen,” he says to the person on the end of line. He pushes lightly at the back of Frank's head, a hint, and guides him to his dick comfortably fat in his soft cotton boxers. 

His mind brushes against Frank's, a soft warm ripple of contact that starts burning brighter and richer when Frank presses his mouth to Cable’s cock, mouthing at him through his shorts. 

He licks and kisses at the red cotton until it turns dark with spit and clings to the fat head and solid shaft, and he sucks harder until he fantasises he can taste Cable leaking hot and savoury. The cotton feels fuzzy against his tongue, and he pleads in his head to be indulged with a taste of the real thing. Cable ignores him, resting a palm on the back of Frank's neck - scruffing him like a puppy, his mind supplies helpfully, just in time for Cable’s interest in Frank’s thoughts to manifest as a lazy ** _!_** in the front of his brain - and keeps him in place so he can gently grind against Frank’s lips, his cheek, his chin. 

_Good man,_ Cable says in his head. _Good dog._

“Hold a minute,” says Cable to the person on the other end of the phone. “Room service is here.”

He puts the cell down on the mattress next to him then, on second thought, holds it up to show Frank. He doesn't recognise the name or the number, but he sure as hell notices that Cable hasn't put it on mute. 

“Coming,” calls out Cable, and pulls his shorts down enough for the elastic to settle under his balls, pretty cock on display. _Better be quick,_ he says to Frank in the privacy of his head. _Better be quiet._

He takes the hint. No need for showmanship, just friction and suction and effort. He wraps his hand ‘round Cable’s shaft and sucks at the head, just how he knows Cable likes it. 

If he didn't have to be quiet he'd blow him wet and loud, spit smearing down his chin, gagging when that gorgeous dick knocked against his soft palette. He’d blow him the way he'd been thinking about since they arrived in Switzerland. Or, really, the way he's kinda always thinking about, kept down on his knees with all that muscle and leashed strength seated over him, ready and able to use Frank in whatever manner Cable saw fit. 

Now though, he's gotta be discreet, mindful of the phone. He drags the flat of his tongue over Cable’s frenulum, licks into his piss slit, one eye on that phone waiting to catch him out as he jacks him fast and dry. One big hand knots into his hair, holding him gently while Cable shallowly rolls his hips, just enough to rock the head of his dick over Frank's lips. 

_Enough,_ says Cable in his head. _Enough for now._ He gently pushes Frank off his dick and picks up the phone, tucking himself away singlehanded. 

“Back,” he says, calmly. “Yes. Yes. Of course.” 

Cable raises an eyebrow at Frank kneeling between his thighs.

 _Saving it,_ he tells him. As calm and unflappable as he sounds on the phone, the voice in Frank's head sounds ragged and desperate. The impression that washes through Frank's brain is hot want, a desire to tell his real work to go shove it and get his cock back into Frank’s hot eager mouth as soon as possible.

 _I busted my knees getting down here,_ Frank retorts. As much as he wants exactly what Cable wants, to swallow down as much of Cable’s dick as he can without gagging, even if he just holds it his mouth and keeps Cable’s cock warm and wet… well, there's fantasy, and then there's mundane reality. His thighs are starting to ache already, stiff after a hard week of work on his own projects, and the work call that's been keeping Cable busy for the past forty minutes has gone on long enough that both his ears are flushed cherry red. 

_In the morning,_ Cable promises, smirking as a touch of mutant mind voodoo catches Frank under his elbows and pulls him to his feet. _Or later. Depending._

“You owe me,” says Frank, catching himself at the last second and pitching down to a whisper. 

“Nothing,” says Cable to the person on the other end of the line. “I forgot to mute the tv.” He mimes a finger cutting his throat and points at Frank, the corners of his eyes wrinkled up in amusement. _Got my eye on you, Captain_.

When Frank finally wakes up it’s late, well past sunrise. He takes inventory of his aches and pains, stiff joints and locked muscles. What hurts more this morning, what's gone numb this morning. He points his toes and rolls his ankles under the covers, frowning balefully at the ceiling as his bones grind and click loud enough to leak through the thick sheets. During the night Cable must've cleared Frank's half eaten BLT off the bed and fallen asleep at his side, face smushed into the fat hotel pillow. His arm rests heavy over Frank's chest, those thick metal fingers twitching and pressing against his ribs as Cable snores and smacks his lips in his sleep. For once it feels good to be held down, truly good, the deadweight of Cable's arm a warm and grounding comfort instead of a physical cage to be instinctively shoved away without thought. 

Danger, Frank thinks to himself. Dangerous. 

Frank stares at the ceiling, committing the moment to memory, parcelling up everything to sate himself later when he might need a tiny shred of something comforting to get through his long endless nights. Warm sheets, cool air, sun leaking around the dark curtains. Cable’s snoring, the way his fingers move in his sleep. 

The curling sinuous twist of Frank's gut, guilty, starts early, yet another sign that he’s coveting something that doesn't belong to him. 

Dangerous. God, so dangerous. 

Beside him Cable mumbles something in his sleep and rolls heavier onto Frank’s side, morning erection bumping into his hip, heavy and hot. 

Frank rubs his free hand over his face, scratching against the five day growth Cable makes no bones about liking, and stares at the ceiling like it might offer him an answer out of this mess of his own making that isn't _time to leave, time to go._

Time to make a clean break and stop chasing the fantasy. 

* * *

By his reckoning it's been fourteen years since he last attended a black tie gala. It's not really his scene any more, doing infiltrations and deep covers while dressed up in fancy duds. Not without an operator running intel behind the scenes and giving him support. Not since Lieberman. 

These days Frank prefers to be a shark cutting through deep waters, an apex predator geared for solo operational success. He is, in short, more familiar with breaking heads on piss-scented dumpsters and breaking into ugly Long Island mansions than he is standing at Cable's elbow, juggling a weak vodka tonic in one hand and a chicken vol au vent in the other while memorising everything about the mark standing so close he can smell the pine cologne on his collar. 

“Isn't that right, Chuck?” Cable squeezes his elbow and looks at him fondly when Frank says _huh?_ like a caveman. 

“I was saying to Brigitte here that we were thinking of taking a weekend in the Alps soon.” He strokes Frank's bicep through his suit, thumb pushing against the woollen grain of his sleeve, and smiles at their companions. “Chuck is so busy with work, it feels like I can never steal him away to give him a proper honeymoon.”

Their mark takes a good look at him, a quick flickering assessment of the way he stands, the way Cable draws him to his side. He smiles. He's a shark. Frank can sense it, predator to predator. “What business are you in, Chuck?”

“Security,” he says lightly. “Personal protection and risk assessment.”

He can feel Cable's amusement pooling quiet at the back of his brain, a warm drip of delight at Frank’s bald-faced lie. 

“You must keep busy. We live in interesting times.”

“Busy enough,” he says, letting the Queens in his accent seep in a lil’ thicker than normal. “Not so busy that I'd say no to bein’ his snow bunny for a few days though.” He stuffs the hors d'oeuvre into his mouth and thinks very unflattering thoughts at the source of the laughter filling his head. 

“Yes, well,” says the mark, masterfully hiding his reaction to Frank's not entirely acted display of New York rudeness. “The true price of good business that we get no time to enjoy our success.”

“And business is _very_ good.” Cable squeezes his elbow again and disengages himself from Frank's arm, smoothly pressing his empty glass into Frank's hand. “Chuck, angel, would you get me another drink? I want to step outside and get a little fresh air.”

“I’ll join you,” says the mark, so smooth that it almost covers up the fact that this is all preplanned, making the handover out in the dark away from eyeballs and cameras. Cable has done his homework.

“Sure,” says Frank. _Big dumb dog,_ he thinks. “Whatever you want, honey.”

“What I want can't be done in polite company,” says Cable, and smirks at the flush starting to crawl up Frank's neck. “But in the meantime I'll take another scotch and soda.”

“I'll come with you,” says Brigitte quickly. “Listening to them talk about business is going to be, how you say, mind numbing.”

“Sure,” says Frank, and obligingly offers his elbow to her. “Bet you're a lot more interesting.”

“Such a low bar,” she laughs, and takes the opportunity to squeeze his arm for herself. “I'll take care of him,” she adds, waving Cable and the mark away. 

“Return him in one piece,” says Cable with a wink. “He's only fun when he's in working order.”

_Angel?_

_I can't very well call you Mrs Summers. I’ll let you know when I make the buy._

Frank steps up to the bar, huge and silent, and smirks when the crowd parts like water after taking one look at him. He shepherds Brigette in front of him and, with one mental ear tuned keenly to the soft noise of Cable in his head, spends the next twenty minutes making friends by putting a dent into the other Mr Winters’s bar tab. 

The buy goes smoothly. So smooth, in fact, that Frank is startled by the feel of Cable pushing up against his brain and then, a few seconds later, against his back. 

“Miss me?”

Frank Castle says nothing. Chuck Winters, stupid and in love, turns his head a lil’ so that Cable can press a kiss under his ear as he says, “You know it.”

“Miss Brigitte, has he been behaving himself?” 

Brigitte laughs and holds up her drink. “Chuck is a perfect gentleman. Never tries to interrupt either, unlike my Oleksa. You've done well for yourself, Monsieur Winters.”

Cable's masked metal hand settles at Frank’s lower back, huge and heavy and so hot Frank imagines he can feel it searing through layers of wool and cotton down to his bare skin. 

“I'm lucky,” Cable says, his thumb rubbing slow circles at the dip of Frank's spine. “Chuck’s got bad enough taste to settle for me.”

Frank takes a measured breath and schools his face into an expression of bland neutrality. Behind his eyelids Cable is being an asshole, building an image in Frank's head of some impractical mountainside place in the rich shithead architectural style, all huge windows and blonde wood and an uninterrupted view of a snowy hillside. He can see Cable's metal hand flexing against the glass as Frank takes him up against the window; the dazzling snow and pine trees fogged over by their combined panted breaths as he plants his feet and fucks Cable with deep measured strokes. 

“Yeah,” he says, proud that his voice is unaffected by the pornography that Cable is indulging in. He takes Cable's hand, flesh, real flesh, and squeezes it in warning. “Real bad taste.”

 _Any time you want,_ says Cable in his head. _It's only a short bodyslide from here. And,_ he adds, slightly reproachfully, _that look was very stylish when I bought the place in 1987._

 _Eyes on the prize._ Frank nods to the bartender for Cable's drink, and permits himself to turn a little more into Cable’s shoulder, let that secret metal hand settle on his waist while they talk polite shop with a handful of people and wait to see how the buy shakes out. 

Chuck Winters is playing his part perfectly. Chuck Winters smiles and nods in silent agreement at his husband’s jokes. Chuck Winters wants to go to that ugly mountainside house and see that view for himself. Chuck Winters wants to drop to his knees in front of that pretentious modular couch and blow his husband with his back turned to a beautiful pristine backdrop of pines dusted with snow, then get fucked deep and satisfying on whatever passes for a comfortable bed in a house that self-consciously grandiose.

Frank Castle, though, he just wants to go to his shitty walk-up rathole in BedStuy and get on his knees and tell Cable to fuck his face ‘til Frank swallows his load or he pukes from hard use, and he doesn't really care which. Frank Castle wants to fuck Cable on his curbside rescue couch, Cable's thick heavy weight pinning him down as he rides him on hot vinyl cushions that squeak with sweat and lube and cum. Frank Castle wants to fall asleep on the mattress on the floor with Cable's arm slung over his chest, breathing in the stale stink of sex ‘cause the painted-in sash window hasn't opened in twenty years.

Chuck Winters has his life together. Frank Castle is a dead man whose body just hasn't realised it yet, and that's the way it's always gonna be. 

Cable’s fingers dig tighter into his waist.

_How much longer ‘til the data clears?_

_Twenty minutes, maybe. Got somewhere to be?_ He's in a good mood, Cable's touch against Frank's mind almost as flirty as the way his hand steals lower on Frank's hip. The deal must've gone smooth for him to be this relaxed, confident but not distracted. Not _entirely_ distracted. 

_Just wondering how long until I can get out of this monkey suit._

_Twenty minutes,_ says Cable, drawing him closer. _Twenty minutes then you and I are going to go somewhere and celebrate a job_ very _well done._

* * *

The elevator ride at the hotel feels interminably slow. They stand there together, close enough that their hands brush. Frank feels nervous and excited, foreign feelings; excited like he's a teenager again, ‘bout to get his first kiss. 

Which, he can see, is stupid as hell. He's too damn old to be getting butterflies in his stomach. It's not their first time, not be a long shot - hell, not even the first time they've fucked this day - but a niggling thought that's been lodged in his head for weeks, crystallising clear in the cool light of this morning as Nathan pushed up close under the sheets and snored in Frank's ear... it just won't go away. 

He's gotta call this off. He _has_ to call this off. 

The elevator chimes and a couple steps in, well dressed and looking at the two of them, openly curious. Cable is on Frank in a flash, bundling him so tight against the elevator wall that for a brief moment he's ready to take a swing at him, ‘cept Cable is in his head saying _stay with me, Frank, good man, stick with me_ as he kisses him. 

He grabs hard at Cable's arm, feeling the unforgiving solidness of flesh metal under his grip, not feeling the ragged seam of bleeding meat and living metal that lives in his head. 

_Thought they were from the party,_ he says in Frank's head, calm and placid. _Just making sure we keep up the couple act._

Frank pulls back enough to lick his lips, looking at Cable's mouth through half closed eyes. Jesus, he wants this so bad. All of it. The dates, the being in public, not just snatching moments in flops and motels and staying away from the windows in Cable’s homely apartment. 

Frank _wants,_ and that's the problem, and has been for too goddamn long because he's a chickenshit who has been avoiding the hard reality staring him in the face. 

It's not like he's ever gonna be able to take Cable out on a date in New York, or anywhere on the entire continent. No point in chasing a fantasy. No point in investing in things that aren't possible.

This is it. This is his last night. 

It's for the best that it's never gonna happen, holding something at arm's length so it can't turn rot by passive exposure to Frank’s dead core. All this time he's been justifying this by thinking he can get by on starvation rations until it's outta his system, but that's a weak shitty lie at best. He can't survive on scraps. He can't purge Cable from his system. Not like this, not when he keeps answering his calls, keeps looking for any excuse to fall into bed with him, keeps finding himself on the sofa watching shitty movies with Nathan's daughter, keeps building up his own unstable papier-mâché fantasy of a normal life where he isn't in a state of perpetual war entirely of his own making. 

Frank _wants._

“Eyes front,” he growls at the couple taking up too much space in the elevator. He pulls Cable down by the collar and licks into his mouth, not caring that their reflection is in the glossy mirror finish of the doors, or, secretly, slightly proud that it is. 

Let ‘em look. It's the closest he's ever gonna get to being with Cable in public. 

The couple cough and stare straight forward, until the elevator calls their floor and he’n Cable brush past, Cable chuckling as Frank hauls him by the hand.

They stumble into the hotel room, three attempts at the swipe card finally overridden by Cable’s mutant magic. Frank steers them to the bed, licking and biting, and resists Cable's attempt to drop him back onto the mattress. 

“Sit down,” he says, busy unknotting his tie and pulling off his shoes. “Get that inducer shit off, quick.” His suit is going to be a wreck but he's in too much of a hurry to give a shit, leaving it on the floor in a puddle of wool. Better things to do than worry about creases when Cable is shrugging off his jacket and kicking his dress shoes off and away, watching Frank in turn. 

He drops to his knees with a grunt and unbuckles Cable’s belt with eager hands, tugging the fine linen of his suit trousers down his thighs and freeing his dick. No underwear. Frank couldn't be more grateful. He coaxes him to the edge of the mattress, hands on Cable’s thick hips, getting him far enough forward that he can get his mouth on the heavy hang of Cable's balls, that pretty pink dick resting hard and hot against his cheek. 

“Hgnugh,” says Cable. 

He mouths at the tight seam of Cable's foreskin until it peels back against the seam of his lips, sucks wet at the smooth pink head and makes all kinda stupid pleased sounds at the way Cable says his name and buries his hands in his hair.

“Can I…” Cable asks, fingers exerting gentle pressure on his scalp, waiting until Frank gargles something that kinda sounds like _yeah_. Cable eases him down, little bit by little bit, deeper and deeper ‘til he's in deep enough to knock the back of Frank’s throat. 

Frank’s eyes fill with reflexive tears, vision swimming as he looks up. 

“Shit,” says Cable, already sounding ragged ‘round the edges. The light leaking from his eye is golden warm and rich, like old flames on dry wood, and the way he's looking down at him makes Frank’s guts freefall for a dizzying moment ‘cause he looks warm and affectionate and so goddamn pleased to have Frank, _specifically Frank,_ between his knees. 

Last night, he reminds himself. Last time.

“Shit, Frank. Fuck, I love your mouth.” Cable pets his hair and strokes his neck, saying nonsense, sweet things; things that are gonna sound corny and stupid as hell when Frank thinks about them later on. 

Last time, last time. 

He hums and swallows Cable back down, eyes drifting closed as Cable fucks his mouth, shallow rocking thrusts that slowly get faster and faster as he breathes heavy and the leak of precum in Frank’s mouth gets wetter and wetter ‘til he sits back and wipes his mouth and looks up at Cable, his dress shirt rumpled and his suit pants dropped on the floor.

“You want to fuck or get fucked?”

He can feel Cable nosing around behind his eyes, looking for the right answer in Frank's head. He slaps him hard across the thigh and Cable bucks underneath him, mismatched eyes wide in surprise. The feel of their connection abruptly breaking feels like a blue shock down the left side of Frank’s brain, and he shakes his head like a dog. 

“Don't,” he says. “None of that tonight, yeah. Not this time.” 

He swallows Cable’s dick in fast shallow sucks, eyes closed. If he can distract Cable with his mouth then maybe Cable isn't gonna ask why he's not allowed in Frank’s head, and if Cable doesn't ask why then he's not gonna have to come up with some kind of coherent answer beyond needing to know if the sex - the combat, the work, the everything and anything - is even any good without Cable in his head. 

If they don't fit together without Cable’s mind fuckery then it's gonna be easier to cut Cable out of his meagre attempts at civilian life, he reasons to himself. This is his last night, he thinks. Clean break. 

“Ride me,” says Cable. “Get on me. Want to watch you, sweetheart.”

“Yeah,” he says, one last lingering lick over Cable’s cock, then another, and another, before Cable’s cupping his face with that terrifying metal hand and gently pushing him back. “Yeah,” Frank says again, shaking free. “Sounds good.”

Frank gets to his feet with a grunt and goes off to shake down the bathroom for something wet. He didn't bring anything like that with him, not even some salve, not expecting to get fucked on a job. Cable’s toiletry bag only contains the basics. His electric shaver and his pine bar soap and that tube of Ben Gay that always leaks, and a bottle of the aftershave that Frank likes. He stares at the glass bottle for a second, squat and square and dark translucent blue, gut churning in knots for a sick moment as he thinks _clean break_ and _god he smells good_ at the same time. Stupid, stupid, 

After a moment of indecision he grabs the travel bottle of hair conditioner from the bathroom bench. He skims the ingredients list. Nothing too bad. Nothing that’ll burn his asshole raw. Last time he used hair conditioner to get his ass fucked he felt like he shit Hawaiian Hibiscus Dreams for a day after, but it’s silicone, it slides, it works. 

Cable is mostly undressed by the time Frank gets back, naked from the waist down, his smart blue shirt unbuttoned and falling open. He strokes himself in a loose grip as Frank straddles his thighs, staring at Frank’s dick, eyeballing every ugly knotty piece of scar tissue on his belly. 

He fingers himself rough and too fast, slopping conditioner over his fingers and pushing it into his hole. He slaps away Cable’s attempt to help, shaking his head no. If Cable's gonna help then he's gonna do what he always does and work him loose and open and sopping wet, entranced by the sight of Frank taking him easier and easier with every push and pull of his fingers. 

Not today. Not this time. He wants this to be a tight fit, wants to feel himself getting split open by gravity and Cable's gorgeous cock. He wants to earn it, for whatever reasons he can't - won't - attempt to justify to himself. 

Cable helpfully holds his dick up and proud while Frank gets settled on his knees, notching that pretty flushed pink head against his asshole and breathing loud as Frank rocks against him, holding back until he slowly takes Cable inch by inch until he’s flush and as deep as he can get. 

God, Cable’s dick is superb. Thick enough that he can feel it, long enough that he scrapes up against Frank’s front wall, and smooth and pretty all over. He fucking loves it, every goddamn time. He's gonna miss it. Gonna miss the whole package, sure, but when he's pent-up and tense, Cable’s phenomenal cock is gonna be at the front of his mind. 

Underneath him Cable breathes deep, the thick muscles of his torso rising and falling, framed by soft blue cotton. His hands twitch on Frank’s legs, fingers flexing and pulling gentle at the dark hair that covers the broad muscular swell of his thighs, and he looks up at Frank like he's having the best luck of his life and says something patently untrue and deeply dick-drunk like _Bright fucking Lady, Castle, you're so fucking hot._

“Don't need to sweet talk me,” says Frank dryly, giving in to inevitability and getting his hands on Cable's tits, feeling the way his nipple pulls tight and hard under his palm. “I'm already sitting on your dick, Summers.”

He wishes he still had good enough knees to squat over him, but those days have long since gone. A shame. He used to look real good like that when he was much much younger; a hot-headed hardbody showing off the incredible strength in his thighs and crushing control of his core. Lieberman used to love making him face the other way and lace Frank's fingers behind his head so there was nothing to impede his view of Frank's hard-won muscles and the sight of Frank’s hole taking his thick cock, free to watch Frank fucking himself stupid under the addictive heat of Lieberman’s naked admiration. 

Too much water under the bridge since those days, in more ways than one. He's got the muscle still, softened under a thin layer of middle age, but that's about all that's left. His face is too beat to shit to pass for handsome and he’s living in skin that's more patchwork than it is pretty. No vanity left to speak of, ‘cept when it simmers up at moments like this when he's got it bad for someone too goddamn good looking for words. Not vain except for when he is, and physically fit except for when it counts. 

Sometimes he truly misses having a set of knees that weren't full of gravel from years of hard landings and dirty fights. These days he can only ride dick for as long as his right knee can handle it and he's gotta stop or change position. Nothing really sells his reality of a middle aged fuck quite like tapping out three minutes in ‘cause his kneecap is grinding to the right and his tendons are on fire. Finally being able to regularly fuck someone as wall-to-wall hot as Cable and knowing he's gonna feel it tomorrow, but in exactly the wrong way, does a lot to dampen a man’s enthusiasm for the simple pleasure of fucking himself stupid on Cable's flawless cock. 

Then again, he doesn't think Cable particularly cares about how jacked up and mortal he looks. Not really. If anything he figures that Cable just runs the numbers and tallies up that Frank is an easy fuck and a good shot, and both of those do the heavy lifting for all his objectionable qualities. He's not sure what Cable even sees in him, apart from the aforementioned highly specialised set of combat skills and an aptitude for sucking dick. It sure as shit isn't his sparkling cocktail repartee, or his ability to look uncomfortable in a suit.

Meanwhile Cable looks like something outta his late night fantasies, all rippling muscle and warm tactile metal. And big, god, big - tall and broad and heavy, oversized and _huge_. Kinda unfair, really. Real one-sided transaction. 

“Hot,” repeats Cable stubbornly. He strokes up Frank's thighs, pushing against the grain of hair and skating past the ugly snarl of scar tissue from an old buckshot injury. 

He is, Frank realises, being courteous and patient, waiting despite the sweat beading at his temples and the subtle rolls of his hips. Cable is - is always - desperate to fuck him; desperate to breed him, ram his dick deep and pump a load into him, yet kept in check by some sense of courtesy to Frank. Like he's a wild animal prone to spooking or, worse, that he’s some tender hothouse flower that Cable might bruise if he's too unseemly and wild. 

He's not entirely wrong, not on the first bit at least, but it still sticks in his craw that Cable is being nice. He doesn't want _nice._ He wants to get fucked until he's incoherent and his brains spurt from his dick. 

This is so much easier when Cable is in his head. It's so much easier to say yes when he doesn't have to say it. 

“Think I prefer it when I can hear what you're thinking,” says Cable with a wry look, squeezing Frank's thigh. 

“Just fuck me,” says Frank. He braces his palms on Cable’s pecs, flesh and metal, and experimentally rocks forward an inch, getting a feel for the way Cable fills him up. “S’all I'm thinking.”

He doesn't like the look Cable is giving him. Too searching, too concerned. Too easy to pretend Cable’s expression means something more than it is. Too easy to get lost in the fantasy of intimacy. Terrifying, dangerous intimacy, of being… of being… of being _known_ as more than a weapon or a tool. 

Dangerous. He can't keep doing this. He's gonna get weaker and stupider if he lets all this back into his life. Connection, attraction, whatever he wants to call it. The dog in his head is gonna throw its chain and tear into that weakness like meat.

“Just fuck me,” he says again, tightening his glutes and grinning feral when Cable makes an ugly choked up noise and bucks up hard. “C’mon. Before we’re both old.”

 _This is the last time,_ he thinks. _Last shot. Make it good._

“I have a better idea.” Cable rolls them both in a tight hold, grinning smug at Frank as he gets his knees under him and strokes into him with a long smooth roll of his hips. He fucks him slow and steady, ignoring every entreaty Frank gives him to take him harder, preferring to kiss him quiet instead.

He gets his hands on Cable's broad shoulders, his arms, the sides of his chest as they rise and fall with his heavy breaths. He slides his hands under Cable’s shirt and digs his fingertips into the ugly zipper of flesh and metal down his ribs and drinks up the sight of Cable leaning into his touch, chasing the hot tingle of misfiring nerves. Cable’s eye glows through the thin skin of his lid when he closes his eyes, unworldly and strange. Frank can't stop staring at it. 

His head is so quiet. God, he misses the noise of Cable getting in his brain.

That's the thing about addiction, isn't it? No one ever knows how bad they're hooked until the supply dries up.

“Put your back into it,” Frank says, giving up on trying to spur Cable on with his heels. He grasps blindly over his head, grunting with irritation when he can't find anything to hold onto except fabric and buttons on the stupid pretentious hotel bedhead. 

“Don't be a backseat driver.” Cable breathes hot into his ear, nipping at his earlobe and chuckling when Frank instantly kicks him in the thigh and bitches ‘bout making his sciatic nerve spark up. “When you're in charge you can take it however you want. But--,” and he bites hard at Frank's neck, digging his teeth into the thick corded muscle until Frank says _oh fuck, oh jesus christ_ and his dick pumps wet ‘cause it hurts so much and his dumb animal brain can't stop yelping with joy, “--I think you're gonna let me use you just like this.”

The noise he makes at that is as incriminating as anything he might accidentally blurt out. He wants Cable to fuck him hard and fast and rough; wants him to pump a load deep into his guts and chafe his shoulders red against the sheets so he can feel it, own it. He wants to walk away with his knees hurting and his hole tender. He _needs_ to walk away from all of this with a physical ache to nurse and prolong and poke at during the long lonely nights of detoxing himself clean of Cable, curing himself of this stupid, weak, human addiction. 

This though, getting fucked slow and deep face to face is some fucked up alternate reality where he can't switch off for a second, ‘cause he can't stop staring at the face of the guy who unknowingly made a hash of Frank's otherwise severely barebones personal life. 

Maybe Cable already knows how that thought - _you're gonna let me use you_ \- has a deep appeal that makes his insides knot up in a way that's not all unpleasant, thinking about being used as a warm wet hole and a vessel for someone else's pleasure. 

In his hazy vague jackoff fantasies he used to be laid out across a bed, face down and spread eagled so any anonymous man can take him and use him ‘cause he's so easy and wet and loose. Men he knew, complete strangers, didn't really matter. The pleasure was in the thought of taking it, being the easy fuck who didn't need to think beyond riding back and making pretty noises, moaning fit to burst as someone - anonymous dates, Logan, a hookup, didn't really matter - dug his nails into Frank's cheeks and split him wide to watch his hole leak cum, pink and tender, demanding to know what it was gonna take to finally knock Frank up. 

Then he got his mental shit pushed in by Cable one night and after that it was mostly just one man, huge and heavy and capable of killing him with a thought, smothering him into the mattress so all he can feel is blood-hot metal scraping against his back and the scent of lived-in sweat filling his nose, and the terrifying intimacy of a mind pressed against his own. Now his shower jerkoff material is almost exclusively about Cable using him and using him and using him, filling him to overflowing, and taking him all over again until Frank blows his load all over the grimy tarped-up shower floor and comes back to reality. 

Maybe he's losing his imagination, getting spoilt by all the mind-shatteringly good fucks Cable has been tossing him for the past year and a half. Or, maybe, he's just a dumb fucker who conditioned himself into this grasping hungry desire by rote repetition. Cable calls with a job, Frank gets a fuck. Cable rings the bell, Frank salivates on command. 

All this time he's spent purging himself of human fragility, decades of learning to live chained to that feral dog deep in that killing place in his head, and for what? So he can be used, and used well, protected by the assurance that the person using him could put him down if needed. 

But he's always thought that right from the very beginning, right? Cable can use him however he wants, whenever he wants, and Frank will gladly let him because it's so good, so fucking _good_. 

He's fucked. He's beyond fucked, and as spectacular as the lays Cable gives him might be, they’re doing nothing to kill the miserable little ball of want that's lodged in his chest like a tumour, poisoning his body with the unending desire for things he can't have. Every time they get together it only makes it worse, feeds it, lets it spread through his body and seep into his brain. 

He's an addict. Last night, he reminds himself. Clean break, cold turkey. 

“Off,” he says. “I wanna--”

There's no dignified way to change positions. Not in reality. Frank kicks Cable in the thigh when he's rolling onto his stomach, Cable’s foot gets caught in the bedspread. They shuffle around each other, laugh awkwardly. Frank pulls his knees under himself and presses his chest to the bedspread, ass in the air and his ugly back and fucked up thighs bare to Cable and god and anyone else who might care to look. 

“Stop staring,” he says gruffly, keenly aware of Cable’s warmth at his back, the prickle of tightly ribbed warm metal rubbing against his ankle as Cable kneels between his legs. “C’mon, fuck me.”

“Oath, Frank, you gotta shut up,” says Cable, groping his ass and squeezing. “You know how many people would kill to be in my spot right now? Let me live.”

“Can live with you putting that dick to good use,” he says pissily, scowling over his shoulder. “Fuck me.”

Cable just makes that goddamn frustrating _mmhmm_ noise and spreads Frank’s cheeks apart with his big metal fingers so he can stare at his asshole, fucked loose and pink and gleaming shiny with hair conditioner. He slowly jacks himself off, mouth slightly parted as he looks his fill. 

“C’mon.” He knows he’s whining now, shifting his weight from knee to knee. He’s being a brat ‘cause he wants to get fucked as much as he wants Cable to stop examining him like he's something to be memorised. Not having him in his head feels lonely and quiet and he misses the joyous noise of Cable broadcasting his unashamed consumption of Frank; how good they feel together, how well they move together, how fucking good it would be to do this every day unhurried and unscheduled. 

Just being looked at ain't gonna cut it any more, no matter how generous he tries to be about it, but… but, but. _Last time,_ he reminds himself. 

“Bright fucking Lady,” breathes Cable, two thick metal fingers working into his ass without preamble, then a third, smooth against the push. He tries for a fourth, pinky tucked tight under his ring finger, knuckles bumping against Frank's rim. “One of these days I’m gonna get my whole hand in you.” 

Frank makes a stupid noise at that, shame roaring up and turning him bright red. He shoves his face into the crook of his arm, embarrassed and hot and feeling like his skin is a size too small. 

Cable can't see him picturing it as detailed as any photograph; every detail of his fantasy refined with time and repetition to get his blood roaring. Cable can't hear him, can't see him, can't take the idea from Frank’s head as easy as plucking fruit from the vine. 

Not the first time Frank’s thought about Cable fisting him. Not the first time his dick has throbbed wet and dripping at the idea of Cable splitting him open, working him wide to take that terrible inhuman hand. He has his fantasy memorised by rote; the sight of all that metal gleaming dark and oily and menacing as Frank takes him past the wrist, as much as he can handle of Cable's corded muscular forearm. He desperately wants to lose his mind with Cable’s fist deep in him, to feel his guts clamping down on unforgiving metal, asshole stretched taut as he wails some broken animal cry and cums all over himself.

“Jesus and fucking Mary,” gasps Frank, blaspheming secret and shameful into the privacy of his arm. 

Cable fingers him fast, spreading his fingers on the way out, narrowing them on the push in. He squeezes Frank's balls, wraps his fingers in a choking loop at the top of his sac and tugs down until Frank arches his back and makes a pathetic wailing noise. His guts are being cored out by the swooping nauseous pain in his testicles, awful and sickening and so goddamn good. His dick drips wet and smears on the sheets as he shoves back onto Cable's fingers, pushing back so those thick knuckles knock painful against the thin skin of his hole, rocking forward ‘til his balls feel like they're gonna tear. 

He's making a hell of a noise, grunting and panting, but he couldn't be quiet if he tried. He presses his face into the sheets, trying to muffle himself, regain some dignity. Cable says _don't you dare, Frank, don't you dare hide from me_ and slaps hard at his balls from behind, his fingers landing squarely on the spot where the skin is thinnest and softest and most fragile. 

It takes a moment for the shock to percolate through Frank’s system before it blooms white hot - blinding like burning phosphorus, unholy white arclight bright - and he's gone, lost, muscles locking up as he comes, cock jerking pump after pump of cum on the sheets as he sobs in anguish. 

“ _Hell_ ,” says Cable after a long moment, once Frank has his sweaty cheek pressed to the sheet, eyes closed and his lashes wet with reflexive tears as he sucks back deep breaths that make his ribs hurt. He sounds genuinely surprised, a big slick-sticky hand resting on Frank's thigh. “I didn't know you could do that.”

He can't even try for a witty answer, or any kind of reply at all. His fingertips feel like they're fuzzy with static. Cable sounds like he's talking underwater. He should probably feel some kind of embarrassment that Cable is staring at his asshole, watching him clench down on nothing as the nervy aftershocks twitch through his system, cock still throbbing as he drips cum onto the thick hotel sheets. 

“You fantastic slut,” breathes Cable. “Get a hand on yourself, Frank. Stay hard for me.”

“I can't,” he says. “Fuck, I can't.” His orgasm punched through him so hard that there's semen splattered on the backs of his arm, spotted on his chest. If he touches his dick it's gonna be torture, his nerves sparking over-sensitive and wrung out.

“I didn't ask.” Cable rocks his fingers back in Frank’s hole and he can't hide the pathetic whimper that slips past his clenched teeth, shameful and weak. “Get your hand on your dick.”

He whines as he touches himself, slowly tugging at his shaft as Cable keeps playing with his asshole. It takes effort to keep touching himself, shoulders curling down as he whines and pants through the aftershocks. 

It would be easy to take the coward’s way out; beg off the rule he set and welcome Cable back into his head, beg him to wash his brain in feelgood static and roll over like a pathetic dog at the first hint of praise over how well Frank takes him. 

But he grits his teeth and thinks about the memory of Cable's thick fingers digging into the raw meat of his shoulder, and thinks about how all that pain got turned into syrupy golden pleasure. How good it felt to let go, submit to the fuzzy pleasure of opiates and the ultimate submission of letting Cable mess around with his brain to the point of making Frank's body betray itself. He can't have that. He's got to be better than that, rise above his addiction to Cable’s interference. 

He wants, desperately. He craves it. He cannot have it. 

“Mrs Summers,” says Cable, stroking his hip. “Oath, sweetheart. My beautiful wife.”

He rises up on his knees behind him, mattress shifting as he drapes himself over Frank's back, huge and hot, sweaty skin sticking to skin as Cable's weight pushes him into the mattress. “You're something else,” he says, dragging his fingers through the wet mess of his hole. “Oath, Frank. Perfect world, we'd do this every day. Keep you wet and open for me.”

He makes an incriminating noise at that, face pressed into the sheets. Cable has this way of digging into his fantasies and dragging them out into the sunshine, easily examined. He knows his reality isn't one where he can have anything he wants, not like he fantasies about. But jesus, what a thought. Being nothing more than Cable’s wife, his husband, whatever it might be. Domesticity, for all that Frank remembers of what it’s like to not be a feral dog nosing around for scraps, to be settled and calm and loved. Waking up in Cable's bed, feeling that big heavy arm over his body but not flinching to get free. Having a schedule, having a life. Kissing someone goodnight and kissing them good morning. Cable sucking him off on that overstuffed soft sofa in his - their - Rochester apartment, fucking Cable over the kitchen table, bent over right where they put down Indian takeout for dinner and orange juice at breakfast. 

Not fighting an unwinnable war. Not hurting every day, not killing every day.

Cable - _Nathan_ \- being trusted to take Frank’s metaphorical leash, knowing when to haul back 'til he heels, knowing when to let it go slack. 

_Last time,_ he thinks, wriggling like an eel until he's out from under Cable and pushing him back onto the pillows. Cable hasn't flagged at all, watching him through hooded eyes as Frank settles over his thighs. He tugs on Frank’s hip until he can wrap big metal fingers ‘round both of their dicks, squeezing firm until Frank makes a thin noise and spills a fat bead of wet down Cable’s thumb.

“Fuck, you're amazing,” breathes Cable, watching his hand with rapt attention, lips parted. “Oath, my god. Un-fucking-believable.”

“Don't have to sweet talk me,” says Frank, tired. “I'm already fucking you.”

“Shut up,” says Cable kindly, and drags his attention up from between Frank's thighs to his face, beaming up at him with such pie-eyed affection that it makes Frank's guts clench and his chest momentarily hitch. He can't keep putting himself through this… through this _soft torture,_ even it's willingly self-inflicted.

Frank shuts him up by kissing him. He cups his hand ‘round the back of Cable's head, tugging at his thick hair, licking into his mouth and fumbling blind between his legs to guide Cable's twitching dick into his hole, hot and thick in his hand. 

“Jesus,” he says, eyes closed as he rises an inch, getting a feel for the way Cable fills him up. “Fuck you're good. Feels so good.”

Cable keeps Frank where he wants him, big hands on his hips, skin and skin-warm metal. Every so often he keeps Frank from rocking down, fingertips digging in and forcing him to stay at the top of his stroke. Frank huffs like a gale, thigh muscles trembling as he wills himself to stay where Cable wants him. He fucks into Frank like that, selfish little sharp rocks of his hips as he works the tip of his cock barely in Frank's rim, using him like a toy. Cable keeps him like that ‘til the shaking in Frank's thighs gets too much, muscles screeching in protest at the strain, and lets him collapse onto his cock before doing it all over again. 

“Oath,” he mumbles into Frank's mouth, kissing him fast and wild, like he can't get enough of his mouth. “So sweet for me. Good boy, so good.”

“Yeah,” he says, foolish to the end. “Summers, yeah."

“Sit back.” Cable pushes at his shoulders ‘til Frank is sitting up, toes digging into the luxurious thick hotel sheets. “Let me look at you, sweetheart.”

Frank obliges, fingers laced behind his neck. Cable stares at him greedy, hands stroking Frank's belly, his chest, every bit of him as far as Cable can manage, fingertips mapping him out. 

He shakes his head when Cable spits in his palm and reaches for him. It's too good like this, Cable's dick sliding smooth against his front walls. If he jerks him off he's gonna blow rope all over Cable's belly and that'll be it. If he keeps himself on the knife’s edge like this it will last so much longer, keep it going, delay the inevitable. 

“I'm close,” says Cable, red in the face, his flesh hand twisting at his nipple and stroking at the seam of metal biting into his neck as he watches Frank ride him with short sharp rolls of his hips, fingers digging into Cable's belly for balance. “Where do you want it?”

“Yes,” grunts Frank, running on autopilot. “Jesus, please.”

Cable, the asshole, still manages to laugh at him even while getting dangerously close to shooting his wad. “Tell me,” he says, teasing, digging his thumbs into the straining tendons of Frank’s inner thighs, close to where his dick is bobbing stiff with each rock of his hips. The hair on Cable's gut has matted down with the copious wet Frank makes, sliding and sticking against his shaft every time he bottoms out. “C’mon Frank, you know I can't read your mind.”

And yeah, wasn't that the deal? He wanted to do this clean; fuck without the drunken heady feel of Cable in his head, messing around with his brain, scouring out his skull across that shared connection. He needs to know if it's good without that. 

And Jesus, yes, it's good. It's still so goddamn good. He hates it. He _loves_ it. Last time, last time, it's dangerous to keep doing this. 

“In,” he says tersely. “All of it.”

Cable grabs him by the shoulders and pulls him down ‘til they're chest to chest, thick powerful arms wrapped around him tight, giving himself enough room to finally jackhammer Frank’s hole with his heels dug into the sheets for leverage. He fucks him hard, thighs pushing Frank’s legs so wide that he's got no choice but to take it every deep pump of Cable's dick, every thrust knocking the breath outta him. 

“Love this,” he gasps out, his coarse stubble scratching against the tender skin under Frank's ear. “So good. Frank, oath, wish we could do this every day. Have you with me all the time, always--”

 _Yes,_ says Frank in the privacy of his head. 

“Keep you safe,” Cable says roughly, squeezing his shoulders. “Keep you home with me.” He makes a noise in the back of his throat, mouth working at Frank's neck, panting wet and loud. “Keep you pregnant and full, sweetheart. Just like you want, right? Anything you want, I'll do it for you.”

 _Please,_ sobs Frank, needy in a way he'd butcher out his own tongue before he ever let anyone hear for themselves. But tonight Cable isn't listening, so Cable can't judge him as pathetic for wanting so desperate and loud. _Please, fuck,_ please. "Nathan," he says instead. "Nathan, give it me, c'mon..."

“Gonna come,” he says. His weird fucked-up eye gleams unholy bright, light flaring and fading into the air like cold flames. The bedside clock rises from the stand, an inch of clearance under it. The bathroom light flickers, goes to half-power. “Take it for me, be my good girl, sweetheart, I'm--.”

Frank makes a thin warbling noise, _uh-uh-uh_ , throat tight, breathing in Cable's cologne as he drops his head into the crook of his neck and rides out the hard full-body jerks as Cable groans and rams himself as deep as Frank can physically take him.

The clock drops back to the table with a thump.

Frank feels that pretty cock throbbing against his hole, pulse after pulse as he empties himself. He closes his eyes and savours the feeling, fantasising that he can feel jet after jet of hot cum splashing against his walls and painting him from the inside out. The hot metal of Cable’s throat rises and falls as he arches his head back and presses into the pillow and says all kinds of horseshit. How good Frank feels ‘round his dick, how well he takes it. How no one fucks him like Frank, no one gives it up so good for him like Frank. How there's no one in the spinning world for him like Frank, so good, the best out there, no one comes close.

It burns Frank up inside. The shame of wanting something so much that it makes him vulnerable. The shame of wanting something, _someone_ , full stop. 

The wild dog in his head yaps and howls and rolls over to show its belly, and Frank can't stand it for a single goddamn second more. 

He crawls off his dick and stumbles to the side, kneeling over Cable. It doesn't take much for him to cum again, not when he's keenly aware of the sloppy mess of conditioner and semen already dripping down his thigh as he stares hungry at all that broad metal and muscle in front of him. He chokes his dick hard and grunts, coming in thin watery splashes over Cable's chest, his throat, his mouth. Some drops hit Cable's opened shirt, the pale cotton turning an incriminating deep blue. 

Cable rolls up onto his elbow with a huff and takes Frank's dick in his mouth, licking and sucking him clean. He cups Frank's aching tender balls in those terrible metal fingers, rolls them ‘round and gently pushes them with the flat of his palm up against the root of Frank's cock ‘til he says _jesus christ_ and a last weak dribble of semen pools on Cable’s tongue. 

Cable hums ‘round Frank's shaft and looks up, mismatched eyes crinkling ‘round the edges. He knows that look. Warmth. Affection. Cable sucks him clean like it's perfectly normal, looks up at Frank like he hung the stars. 

Unacceptable. No more last times. Rip it the fuck away. 

His gut lurches and Frank reels back, thick cotton sheets tangling ‘round his toes and tripping him up. Cable’s tooth scrapes against the sensitive crown of his cock and Frank spits _fuck_ from between clenched teeth, scrabbling backwards. 

He sits on the edge of the bed with his hands clasped between his knees, shoulders curved down on himself. Frank's head is ringing like the bells of hell, stomach churning, and he sucks back great lungfuls of hair through his nose ‘til he breathes too deep at the wrong time and chokes on air. 

To his credit Cable doesn't try to touch him as he barks out a cough. He lays back and folds one thick arm behind his head and waits, patient and still a little out of breath. His thick metal fingers idly rub at his chest and smooth the last splashes of Frank's semen into his skin, killing time until the rigid set of Frank's shoulders relaxes by degrees. Could be five minutes, could be ten. Long enough that Frank's thighs feel sticky and cold and the sheet under him feels damp, long enough that Cable is starting to doze off.

He rubs his palms on his thighs. “I need to get back to the city.”

Summers grunts and sits up slightly, weight on his elbow. “Now, or in the morning?”

Frank swallows hard, his throat so tight it catches and clicks. His fists itch with the urge to start swinging, prickling hot with aimless anger that gutters out as quickly as it starts. Any residual good feelings he had from getting fucked so right have already slipped through his fingers, wasted and spent. “Don't be a smartass. Doesn't suit you.”

“Frank.” He feels the mattress dip when Cable moves, a big hand hanging just over his shoulder, still carefully not touching him. “You need to leave?”

If he was a funny guy he'd take the obvious joke, _is that a question or an order?_ But he isn't, so he doesn't. 

“Yeah.” He's so tired lately. So tired of everything, really. “Yeah, I gotta.”

All these years he's kept his guard up and grown an armour of iron bark and savage thorns, always pruning away the stray weeds of sentimentality and exhaustion that sprout when he lets his guard down. All these years he's discouraged anyone from trying to broach those thorns, all these years he's forced away anyone who think they might be able to crack his dead man’s husk wide open to find those few carefully hidden sapling leaves that _are_ tired and lonely and ready to sprout towards someone else's sun, breaking through the dry rot that's threaded through Frank from the inside out. 

All this time Frank has been hypervigilant about barricading himself against other people trying to batter their way in. He'd never stopped to consider that the person fruitlessly trying to tear down his walls would be Frank himself. 

He's pathetic and lonely. He's weakened himself for no good reason, no advantage. 

Cable pulls on his boxers and turns on the tv, half watching sports news and half silently watching Frank clean up in the bathroom behind a half-closed door, dress and gather his things in his duffle bag. His suit is the last thing to be crumpled up and wedged under the zip, and he can feel Cable's annoyance at that particular little disrespect without needing to confirm it. 

When he gives a nod there's a cold blue light and a pain in his ears, and he's in his dingy little one bedroom apartment in BedStuy, the one where Cable had spent an afternoon picking his shoulder free of buckshot. 

He looks at Cable standing in his kitchenette, huge and solid and still sex-slow and rumpled ‘round the edges, in his unbuttoned dress shirt and his soft blue shorts that cling low and bite into the little swell of fat over his hips. 

Cable looks so good it makes Frank doubt himself for a long second, and that’s what spurs him on. Every little decadence he allows himself is one more mistake to pay for later. 

_One last time,_ he thinks to himself. _Rip it off fast._

“Summers. I’ve been meaning to tell you, but, uh. Take me off your books,” Frank says. “This isn't working out.”

Cable looks surprised. A little hurt too, just for a brief moment, and that was a surprise in itself. 

“Will do,” he says after a short pause. “Can I ask why?”

“Distraction. I’ve got my own shit to do. I'll call you if I'm back on the market for outside work.” Frank drops his duffel bag on the shitty vinyl couch, punctuation to a sentence not said.

“Sure,” says Cable carefully. “I’ll keep an ear out for you.” He hesitates for a moment. “The codes for the place in Jersey, should I--”

“Overdue for a change,” says Frank. He makes a show out of digging through his bag, under the suit, looking for nothing in particular. “Supposed to change them every coupla weeks, so…”

“Of course. Can't be too careful.” Cable gives him an inscrutable look, his expression carefully shuttered. He pauses long, waiting for… something? anything? before he exhales through his nose and stands up straight. “Stay in touch, Frank.”

Frank nods sharply before looking away, chickenshit cowardly, and then Cable is gone, air rushing to fill the void with a sharp snap of sound. 

He exhales shaky and tense, hands still in his bag, and sets his mouth in a thin line. He's still wearing Cable’s fake wedding ring, loose on his finger, and feels faintly angry for the realisation. Frank spins it on his finger and works it off, tugging at his knuckle, and after a moment of indecision, drops onto the rickety table next to the couch. Something to deal with later, he decides. Something to ignore for as long as possible. He pinches at his nose and rubs at his eyes, one deep breath before he squares his shoulders and scowls at the wall. Enough indulgences, enough wasted time. 

Frank has a war to fight, and Frank’s gonna fight it ‘til he’s dead. Alone, unencumbered by outside influence, unencumbered by his own bullshit. Just how it should be. Just how it needs to be.

**Author's Note:**

> [stryfeposting.tumblr.com](http://stryfeposting.tumblr.com)


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